Blair
Anglicized form of a Scottish surname meaning "plain, field, battlefield".
Name Census estimates that about 32,159 living Americans carry the first name Blair. It sits at #218 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 59.0% of registrations being female. The average person named Blair today is around 31 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Blair births was 2024 (1,479 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Blair. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Blair with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Blair started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
- • Blair sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
32K
~ 1 in 10,658 Americans
Peak year
2024
1,479 babies that year
Average age
31
years old
2024 SSA rank
#218
Tracked since 1881
Census
Blair in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 26,151 people with the first name Blair, which placed it at #1,362 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#1,362
National first-name rank
People counted
26K
26,151 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
8.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
81.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Blair
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Blair is White at 81.0%. The next largest groups are Black (10.1%) and Two or More Races (3.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Blair described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Blair at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White81.0% · 21,189
- Black or African American10.1% · 2,646
- Two or more races3.7% · 975
- Hispanic or Latino3.3% · 859
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.2% · 320
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 162
Gender
Gender distribution for Blair
Blair is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 36,398 total registrations, 14,939 (41.0%) were male and 21,459 (59.0%) were female.
Blair as a male name
- Ranked #2,166 in 2024
- 67 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1963 (330 births)
Blair as a female name
- Ranked #218 in 2024
- 1,412 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (1,412 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Blair on both sides of the split. Of the 26,145 people counted with this name, 11,032 were male (42.2%) and 15,113 were female (57.8%).
Popularity
Blair: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Blair from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 6,588 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Blair by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Blair during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Blairs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 48 states and territories. California, Pennsylvania, Texas recorded the most babies named Blair, while Rhode Island, New Mexico, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 584 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Blair
The name Blair is of Scottish Gaelic origin, derived from the Gaelic word "blar" meaning "field" or "plain." It is believed to have originated as a surname referring to someone who lived near a field or plain.
The earliest recorded use of the name Blair dates back to the 12th century, when it appeared as a surname in Scotland. One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name was William de Blair, who was mentioned in a charter from the reign of King William the Lion of Scotland (1165-1214).
In the Middle Ages, Blair was a common surname in Scotland, particularly in the counties of Ayr and Renfrew. It was also used as a place name, such as Blair Atholl and Blair Castle, which were associated with the influential Murray family.
The name Blair gained wider recognition during the Scottish Renaissance, when notable figures like Robert Blair (1593-1666), a Scottish Presbyterian minister and writer, and John Blair (1720-1800), a Scottish-American farmer and judge, rose to prominence.
As the name gained popularity, it began to be used as a given name as well. One of the earliest recorded instances of Blair as a first name was in the 18th century, when Blair Smith (1770-1857), an American politician and lawyer, was born.
Other notable individuals named Blair throughout history include:
1. Blair Underwood (born 1964), an American actor known for his roles in films and television shows like "L.A. Law" and "The New Adventures of Old Christine."
2. Blair Brown (born 1946), an American actress best known for her roles in films like "The Accidental Tourist" and "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd."
3. Blair Rasmussen (born 1973), an Australian Olympic swimmer who won a gold medal in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
4. Blair Holcomb (born 1991), an American professional ice hockey player.
5. Blair Thornburgh (born 1983), an American author known for her young adult fiction novels.
While the name Blair has its roots in Scotland, it has gained worldwide recognition and is now used as a given name in various cultures and countries.
People
Blair + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Blair as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Blair: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Blair?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 32,159 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Blair going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 10,658 US residents.
Is Blair a common name?
We classify Blair as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 36,398 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Blair most popular?
The single biggest year for Blair was 2024, when 1,479 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Blair is about 31 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Blair in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 26,151 people with the name Blair, or 8.66 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,362 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Blair in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Blair?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Blair on both sides of the split. Of the 26,145 people counted with this name, 11,032 were male (42.2%) and 15,113 were female (57.8%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Blair?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Blair is White at 81.0%. The next largest groups are Black (10.1%) and Two or More Races (3.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Blair most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Blair in the 2020 Census, accounting for 81.0% (21,189 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Blair in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Blair a female name?
Yes, 59.0% of people registered as Blair in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Blair still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Blair in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Blair can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Blair?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.